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NCPE: Voucher Costs Are Rising Dramatically Above Budget Projections

By dianeravitch
September 18, 2024 //
5

The National Coalition for Public Education published valuable information contrasting the actual cost of vouchers to overly optimistic projections by their advocates. In every state that has adopted vouchers, most vouchers are used by students already enrolled in private schools. In states such as Florida and Arizona, vouchers are “universal,” meaning there are no income limitations or other restrictions on their accessibility. In essence, vouchers provide public dollars to subsidize the tuition of students in private and religious schools. They are a welfare program for the affluent.

The NCPE concluded:

When lawmakers consider expanding or creating private school voucher programs, their projections often drastically underestimate the actual costs. They sell a false promise that vouchers will save money, do not budget adequate funds, and then wind up with million dollar shortfalls, necessitating cuts from public education and even tax increases. 

Some voucher advocates incorrectly claim that if the amount of the voucher is less than the average expenditure spent to educate a student in public school, the state will save money. Existing voucher programs prove this false.  

First, it costs less than the average expenditure to educate some students, and much more to educate others who need additional support and services–like those with disabilities, English language learners, and low-income students. The students who are most expensive to educate, however, tend to remain in public schools  because they cannot find a private voucher school willing to accept them. Yet, because of the voucher program, the public schools are left with fewer resources. Furthermore, in a voucher program, the state now pays tuition for private school students who never attended public schools, which is an altogether new cost for taxpayers.

This all adds up to more, not less, spending.

Here are several examples of the skyrocketing costs of voucher programs:

ARIZONA’S VOUCHER IS COSTING 1,346% MORE THAN PROJECTED, CONTRIBUTING TO A $400 MILLION BUDGET DEFICIT.

  • The fiscal note attached to Arizona’s universal voucher program projected the program would cost the state about $65 million in 2024 and $125 million in 2025. But once students’ applications started to come in, state leaders realized these estimates were woefully inadequate. The Arizona Governor’s Office now estimates that the price tag is more than 1,346% higher at a cost of $940 million per year. This is one of the main causes of a $400 million budget shortfall in the state’s general fund, which funds the state’s public schools, transportation, fire, police, and prisons.

THE FLORIDA VOUCHER IS ALREADY MORE THAN $2 BILLION OVER BUDGET IN YEAR ONE.

  • The Florida Senate projected that its voucher expansion would cost $646 million. But independent researchers estimated that the program would actually cost almost $4 billion, and actual costs are already approaching that amount—$3.35 billion in the first year. In just one county, Duval, school officials report a $17 million budget shortage due to funds lost to the vouchers.

WEST VIRGINIA’S VOUCHER DRAINS MORE THAN $20 MILLION FROM PUBLIC SCHOOLS PER YEAR.

  • During the 2024 – 2025 school year, the West Virginia voucher program is expected to funnel $21.6 million away from the state’s public schools–enough to pay the salaries for 301 professional teachers and 63 school service workers. As a result of the voucher and other declines in enrollment, multiple school districts are already warning residents that they need to impose property tax increases in order to continue to pay current teachers’ salaries.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Budget Cuts, Disruption, Education Industry, Florida, Funding, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Florida: University President Sasse Spent Lavishly on Parties

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2024 //
25

Former Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse served briefly as president of the University of Florida–17 months. During that time, he spent lavishly on staff and entertaining. He hired members of his former DC staff at six-figure salaries and allowed them to work remotely. He resigned in July to “spend more time with his family,” but will be paid his salary of $1 million a year until February 2028.

The student newspaper reported another instance of Sasse’s extravagant spending; the story was republished in the Orlando Sentinel. It was written by Garrett Shanley and appeared in Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.

GAINESVILLE — The University of Florida’s then-president, Ben Sasse, dished out over $1.3 million on private catering for lavish dinners, football tailgates and extravagant social functions — a figure roughly double the amount spent by his predecessor and one that included a holiday party featuring a $38,610 sushi bar.

At the Dec. 7 holiday party, Sasse hosted about 200 guests who dined on fresh sushi hand-rolled by two dedicated chefs alongside traditional dishes of beef, chicken and sweet desserts. The event, detailed in a newly released list of more than 500 itemized catering expenses obtained under Florida’s public records law, cost $176,816, or roughly $900 per person.

The guest list that night included UF’s top brass and officials with the university’s fundraising foundation, who solicit big checks for education programs from wealthy donors. With a student choir caroling in the background, Sasse personally welcomed guests as they arrived at the old president’s mansion on campus, and later toasted them from two open bars serving unlimited alcohol. The bill for the liquor alone was listed as $7,061.

Sasse’s yuletide soirée was the largest single expenditure — nearly 15% of his total catering spending — until he abruptly resigned in July after 17 months in office. The new details about his outsized catering costs add to disclosures about his office’s multi-million dollar spending on lucrative consulting contracts and high-paid, remote jobs he awarded to Republican former staffers and allies that have generated bipartisan scrutiny and promises of government audits.

Open the link to finish reading.

This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at garrettshanley@ufl.edu. You can donate to support our students here.

Categories Florida, Higher Education

Florida: Who Is the Worst College President in the State? Sasse or Corcoran?

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2024 //
3

Nate Monroe of the Jacksonville, Florida, Times Union poses a challenging question: who is the worst college president in the state? Ben Sasse or Richard Corcoran? Sasse, the former Senator from Nebraska, was hand-picked by Governor DeSantis to be President of the state university system, the University of Florida. He hired several of his former staff in D.C. and paid them lavish salaries to stay in D.C. and work remotely. He retired after one year, with a $1 million annual salary until 2028. Corcoran, former Speaker of the House in Florida, former state education commissioner, rightwing ideologue, was selected by DeSantis to lead the conversion of tiny (700 students) New College from a bastion of progressivism to become a libertarian/Christian Hillsdale of the South.

He writes:

Richard Corcoran wasn’t about to let that runza monger hog the spotlight. No sir, if there’s going to be a disgraced university president in the news, by god it’s going to be Richard Michael Corcoran of New College of Florida, the once-respected liberal arts school turned raggedy right-wing academy for Clarence Thomas scholars.

Ben Sasse, the University of Florida’s former president, was caught with his hand in the cookie jar, making him Florida’s main character for the first half of the week. Not to be outdone, Corcoran’s latest sin is having his underlings toss a truckload of books into the garbage, according to a report Thursday from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s Steven Walker, combining the oafish meanness of Matilda’s parents with the imagery of dystopian fiction. In a response befitting this disinformation age, Corcoran’s flaks called the account “false” — a bold statement in light of the video and photo evidence available — before then, with no hint of irony, confirming the account: “The images seen online of a dumpster of library materials is related to the standard weeding process.”

Some hapless Corcoran toady pointed to a state law to explain why the books couldn’t be donated or made available to students, as they had in the past, but that law merely confirms the clear fact that New College could have done exactly that. This was no accident: The books bound for the landfill included titles from the college’s former Gender and Diversity Center — a collection of words that, in the Free State of Florida, generally invite state censorship. Heaven forbid college kids read “Nine and Counting: The Women of the Senate,” a book a curious New College student would have to dumpster dive to find now.

Corcoran is that most fitting a Floridian for the DeSantis era: a committed, strident ideologue, except in his own affairs. During his tenure in the state House, for example, he was known as a rude and miserly fiscal hawk, possessed with the belief college administrators were overpaid and spending lavishly. He seemed to believe that until he began trawling for a sinecure from his political superior, Gov. Ron DeSantis, in the world of public education. That first took the form of an appointment as Florida’s Education Commissioner, a mostly undistinguished term save for a bid-rigging scandal centered on the management of a small Florida school district.

As commissioner, he got the public attention he so often seems to crave, but his true apparent goal was becoming one of those overpaid college administrators himself. He gunned for a chance to run Florida State University — a crusade during which he flew a bit close to the sun — but ultimately landed a job running New College of Florida. He was installed by a remade board of trustees, a group of fanatics selected by DeSantis with the intention of making an example out of the small liberal-arts school.

Corcoran, an opponent of public education (save for his ability to make a buck off it), quickly set about turning New College into the Hillsdale of the South, a conservative higher-education bulwark. Vital to this work was securing for himself a plum compensation package worth about $1.1 million, a staggering sum that is among the highest in Florida despite New College being the state’s smallest public college.

It’s been one controversy after the next with Corcoran, but that so often seems to be the point.

Corcoran and Sasse’s hirings at their respective schools seemed to usher in a sea change in how higher education is run in Florida: experienced administrators were out, politicians were in. DeSantis carefully chose the appointees who run Florida’s college system, centralizing power over this diversified set of schools and allowing him to exert his will on issues like tenure and diversity programs. Every high-level vacancy in a Florida college prompts a fevered and terrified concern: which low-life politician is DeSantis going to stick them with next?

But Sasse and Corcoran have generated so much heat — Sasse in particular has come under criticism this week from no less than U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz and Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis — it’s tempting to hope this experience has even soured DeSantis on this particular project. The problem with useful idiots is that they happen to be … well, you know.

Nate Monroe is a Florida columnist for the USA Today Network. Follow him on Twitter @NateMonroeTU. Email him at nmonroe@gannett.com.

Categories DeSantis, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Florida, Higher Education

Florida: School District Restores 36 Banned Books, to Settle Lawsuit

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2024 //
1

A school district in Florida agreed to settle a federal lawsuit by restoring 36 banned books to school libraries. The censorship of books that contain references to LGBT+ people or to race/racism was launched by Governor DeSantis, who wanted to “protect” students from topics he personally finds objectionable. DeSantis considers such topics to be “woke,” which he has vowed to expel from the state. Other lawsuits are pending in the state.

TALLAHASSEE — Authors of the children’s book “And Tango Makes Three” and parents of students have reached a settlement with the Nassau County school district that will lead to 36 books returning to school libraries after being removed last year, according to court documents filed this week.

The settlement came in a federal lawsuit filed in May amid widespread controversy about removing books from school libraries in Florida and other states. Two federal lawsuits are pending, for example, about the Escambia County School Board’s removal of books.

“And Tango Makes Three,” which tells the story of two male penguins who raised a penguin chick at New York’s Central Park Zoo, has become a prominent part of the debate in Florida. Lawsuits allege it has been targeted for depicting same-sex parents raising a child.

Nassau County officials said they removed “And Tango Makes Three” and two other books last year because of a lack of circulation, according to the settlement. District officials said they removed 33 other books because of alleged “obscene” material that would violate state law.

But the lawsuit contended “And Tango Makes Three” was removed because of anti-LGBTQ bias, and the settlement includes a statement that district officials “agree that And Tango Makes Three contains no ‘obscene’ material in violation of the obscenity statute, is appropriate for students of all ages, and has pedagogical value.”

The settlement lists 22 other books that are slated to be returned to libraries by Friday. Examples include “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison and “The Clan of the Cave Bear” by Jean Auel…

The law firm Selendy Gay PLLC, which represents “And Tango Makes Three” authors Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson and the parents, issued a news release Thursday that described the settlement as “major.”

“This settlement — a watershed moment in the ongoing battle against book censorship in the United States — significantly restores access to important works that were unlawfully removed from the shelves of Nassau County, Florida’s public school libraries,” Lauren Zimmerman, one of the firm’s attorneys, said in a prepared statement. “Students will once again have access to books from well-known and highly-lauded authors representing a broad range of viewpoints and ideas.”

Categories Censorship, Democracy, DeSantis, Florida, Freedom to Read

Florida: Is DeSantis’s Star Declining?

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2024 //
8

Ron DeSantis is second only to Trump as the most toxic politician in the U.S. He is cruel. He is mean. He is anti-science. He is anti-intellectual. He is a prude. He signed one of the worst abortion bans in the nation. He banned accurate sex education. He demonized anything related to LGBT issues. He tried to suppress drag queens, but they are performers and are irrepressible.

DeSantis has exercised near-total control over the state because both houses of the legislature are Republican-dominated. Whatever DeSantis wanted, the legislature gave him, including a militia under his command. DeSantis personally drew the map to redistrict the state for Congressional seats; he managed to get rid of one of the state’s majority Black dustricts

Taking personal control of education in Florida has been one of his biggest goals. He has focused on redirecting the curriculum of public schools and colleges. He pushed through legislation that banned honest teaching about race and gender in the schools, including a law known as “Don’t say gay,” which restricted teaching about race, gender, and homosexuality. He demanded a revision of the AP course on African American history to delete ideas and authors he didn’t like. His state education department rejected textbooks that were too honest about climate change.

He encouraged book banning, although he publicly denied it; PEN America, however, identified Florida as the state that banned the most books. He has worked closely with the prudes at Moms for Liberty, aka Moms for Censorship. He packed the State Board of Education with his cronies. He eliminated tenure in higher education.

Friends of DeSantis were selected by the state board of education to be president of public colleges; the top job at the University of Florida was given to a retired politician, who lasted one year, gave hefty salaries to his former staff in DC to work remotely, and stepped down with a salary of $1 million yearly until 2028.

DeSantis destroyed the only progressive public college in the state, New Colmege. He packed the board with right wingers, who hired a politician to be its president, eliminated programs that offended them and recruited athletes to replace the free-thinkers who used to be drawn to the school. His aim: to turn progressive New College into the Hillsdale of the South.

In his zeal to redesign K-12 schooling, DeSantis expanded the state’s voucher programs so that every student in the state, regardless of need, was eligible for a public subsidy. This coming year the state will spend about $4 billion on vouchers for private schools, most of which are religious. Most of the students who use vouchers never attended public schools; sought voucher program is subsidizing the tuition of students who were already attending elite private schools or religious schools.

The voucher schools, by the way, are not required to take state tests. They have no accountability to the state taxpayers who fund them.

He appointed a doctor as the state’s “surgeon general” who was critical of vaccines and masking.

DeSantis was looking unstoppable. He seemed to be in line to inherit Trump’s mantle, as leader of the forces of bigotry, anti-science, and anti-intellectualism. But then Trump jumped into the 2024 race and crushed DeSantis in the primaries.

DeSantis is term-limited. He cannot run again in 2026. Competitors are already measuring the drapes in the Governors’ landing.

And DeSantis is starting to see rebuffs that would have been unimaginable before this year.

Two years ago, DeSantis endorsed school board candidates who shared his extreme rightwing views about race and gender. Of the 30 candidates he endorsed, more than 80% won their seat. DeSantis boasted that Florida was the state where “woke goes to die.” But in recent school board elections, only about half the candidates supported by DeSantis and his allies “Moms for Liberty” were elected.

DeSantis was also embarrassed by a sex scandal involving one of his favorite power couples, Bridget Ziegler–a co-founder of Moms for Liberty and a school board member in Sarasota–and Christian Ziegler–chair of the state Republican Party. The Zieglers got caught in a messy threesome, which led to Christian’s resignation from his position and Bridget’s refusal to resign from the school board. Read Bridget’s Wikipedia entry for the sordid details. Moms for Liberty, which crusades against gay sex, dropped Bridget’s name as a co-founder and pretended she didn’t exist.

Then came the latest fiasco: the DeSantis administration planned to put a major development into one of the state’s most important parks, the Jonathan Dickinson State Park. The proposed development included a 350-room hotel and a golf course. The park is near Hobe Sound. It consists of 11,500 acres. Development was planned for other state parks too.

The uproar from people of all political persuasions was instantaneous and loud. “Hands off our park!”

DeSantis dropped the plan.

On August 28, the Washington Post reported:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday pulled the plug on a proposal that would have paved over native habitats and protected beaches in state parks to build golf courses, pickleball courts and large hotels.

The Republican governor backed away from the controversial plan announced by his administration last week after even members of his own party protested. Hundreds demonstrated at the nine parks targeted for development.

“So this is something that was leaked,” DeSantis said at a news conference Wednesday in Winter Haven when he was asked about the plan. “It was not approved by me. I never saw that. They’re going back to the drawing board.”

It was the first time DeSantis has spoken publicly about the issue. The “Great Outdoors Initiative” was announced last week by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and called for building three golf courses at Jonathan Dickinson State Park, a stretch of undeveloped land north of Palm Beach popular for its trails and birding.

The plan also proposed building new lodges with space for hundreds of guests at Anastasia State Park near St. Augustine and Topsail Hill Preserve in the Panhandle. The latter has sand dunes that the state park service describes as “especially remarkable because they are untouched by development.”

Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel wondered who paid whom and who was profiting:

Plans by the Ron DeSantis administration to put golf courses and a hotel into one of Florida’s state parks appear to have suffered a fast and fatal blow.

It wasn’t just that Democrats objected. Virtually everyone did. In fact, Florida Republicans tripped over each other to trash the idea.

“Absolutely ridiculous” was how Rick Scott and Marco Rubio described the way DeSantis’ Department of Environmental Protection wanted to fast-track the controversial development. GOP Congressman Brian Mast called it “bullsh*t.”

It didn’t stop there. Everyone from the Florida Senate president to the state’s Republican CFO said it was nuts to allow a development company to plow 45 holes of golf and a hotel into South Florida’s Jonathan Dickinson State Park, a preserve known for its expansive scrub-jay habitat.

The outcry was so overwhelming that the out-of-state group planning the golf course announced Sunday it was pulling out.

But that only raised more questions. Chief among them: How on earth could one particular development group claim it was abandoning plans for a development opportunity that had never before been publicly advertised?

A key question I had all along: Who’s going to profit? In fact, last week I asked state environmental officials only one question: How will these development companies be chosen?

The answer should’ve been swift and simple: Of course we will open this up to a competitive bidding process. That’s how ethical government works.

Instead, a spokeswoman acknowledged my question, but then never answered it. That was supremely suspicious.

To put an even stinkier cherry on top of this stench sundae, the Palm Beach Post reported that the company had a former Florida secretary of the environment on its payroll as a lobbyist. Because what could be more Florida than one of the state’s top former environmental officials trying to literally pave the way to environmental destruction?

The whole plan reeks of secretive, inside dealing.

Still, inside dealing — specifically no-bid contracts where political pals and cronies cash in on public assets — isn’t new. In fact, it’s been a sordid hallmark of the DeSantis administration, whether it’s a  $100,000 campaign donor that scored $46 million worth of no-bid COVID contracts or no-bid deals at the state’s new Disney governmental services district.

Most Florida Republicans didn’t seem to mind these no-bid deals … until now.

So what changed? Well, two things:

1) This deal was exceptionally bad. Floridians tolerate a lot of rotten behavior. But plans to desecrate land that taxpayers spent millions to protect was just too much.

2) Also, DeSantis’ political clout is seriously diminished. For most of the past six years, Florida’s governor had total control over this state. His fellow Republicans would do anything he asked. But DeSantis’ star has dimmed. His presidential campaign collapsed. His local endorsements fell flat in last week’s primary elections. Once touted as the heir apparent to the MAGA throne, DeSantis has been shoved aside by the JD Vances and Matt Gaetzes of the world. He’s now a lame-duck governor with much glummer prospects.

It’s not clear whether development plans for the other state parks are dead, but it’s hard to believe they will go forward.

As we watch Ron DeSantis’ star fade away, we can all breathe a sigh of relief and hope there’s not a return appearance.

Categories Cruelty, DeSantis, Disruption, Extremism, Florida

Orlando Sentinel: President of University of Florida Cashed In on Staff and Consultants

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2024 //
8

Shortly after Senator Ben Sasse left the U.S. Senate, he accepted the presidency of the University of Florida. Silas Morgan of the Orlando Sentinel relied on reporting by the student newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, to describe how former Senator Sasse upped the budget for his office by millions of dollars.

The University of Florida’s student newspaper reported Monday that former university president Ben Sasse spent millions of the school’s money to hire GOP political allies.


Sasse, a former Republican U.S. Senator from Nebraska, gave several one-time Senate staff members and other GOP officials lucrative remote positions at UF, according to records obtained by the Independent Florida Alligator.


Among the Senate staffers who joined him at UF are his former chief of staff, Raymond Sass; his former communications director, James Wegmann; his former press secretary, Taylor Silva; and three other former staffers. Both Sass and Wegmann worked remotely from the Washington D.C. area.


Sass’ salary, at $396,000, was more than double his Senate salary. Wegmann’s new position at UF earned him $432,000, while his predecessor in the position had made $270,000.

The hirings contributed to a $4.3 million increase in presidential salary expenses, part of a tripling of his office’s spending compared to what his predecessor, Kent Fuchs, spent during his last year in office, the Alligator reported. Sasse’s office employed more than 30 staff members, while Fuchs had fewer than 10.


Sasse also hired former Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, who worked remotely from Nashville, in a newly-created position that paid a starting salary of $367,500 and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham’s former scheduler, Alice James Burns, who also worked remotely and was paid $205,000.


A report obtained by the Alligator says Sasse spent over $20,000 flying his employees to UF between April 29 and July 29. The only hire who lives in Florida received a $15,000 stipend to relocate to Gainesville.


UF hasn’t responded to requests from the Alligator for a complete log of Sasse’s travel expenses. His travel expenses rose to $633,000 over his first full fiscal year, more than Fuchs spent on travel in eight years.

He also spent $7.2 million on consulting contracts, nearly two-thirds of which went to consulting giant McKinsey and Company, where he used to work as an advisor on an hourly contract. This amounts to more than 40 times what Fuchs spent on consulting in eight years.

Sasse abruptly resigned at the end of July, citing his wife’s failing health. The Alligator says the university did not respond to questions about what would happen to the hires now that Sasse is gone. Fuchs has returned as interim president until the UF Board of Trustees can hire a permanent replacement for Sasse.


Sasse’s hiring by the Board in 2022 resulted in the UF Faculty Senate passing a no confidence resolution in Sasse’s presidential search process due to transparency issues. Legislation passed by Florida’s GOP-controlled legislature earlier in 2022 made records relating to public university presidential searches exempt from Florida’s open public meetings and public records requirements.

His appointment by the board of trustees also generated controversy among parts of the student body, especially the LGBTQ+ community, for political positions Sasse had taken while in the Senate.

Categories Accountability, DeSantis, Education Reform, Florida, For-Profit, Funding, Higher Education

Florida: Climate Change Kills Off Last of a Rare Species of Tree

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2024 //
15

The state of Florida—Ron DeSantis and his dumdum legislature—has decided that climate change doesn’t exist, but climate change doesn’t care. The Miami Herald reported that the last of a rare species in the Florida Keys has died—because of rising seas. The children of Florida won’t understand any of this because the State Department of Education will not buy textbooks that explain climate change. They think—I suppose—that if you don’t learn about it, it will go away.

Key Largo has a new, disturbing and first-of-its-kind graveyard. There are no headstones, no burial markers, no names, no bodies. 

It’s the last place an incredibly rare species of tree called the Key Largo tree cactus was seen alive, back in 2023. The killer? All the clues point to climate change. 

At least, that’s what a newly published paper suggests. Scientists have been watching this particular stand of cacti — known for their height (up to 20 feet) and brown hairlike puffball they grow around their flowers — since the 1990s.

At the time, researchers determined that a two-acre patch in John Pennekamp State Park was the only population in the U.S. of Pilosocereus millspaughii, an offshoot from the larger Caribbean population of the cactus. But as of last year, the very last of the bunch is gone. And researchers believe sea level rise was the main culprit — rising tides and groundwater turning the soil too salty for the plant to survive. It appears this local extinction (also known as extirpation) could be the first climate-driven demise of a species in the United States.

“As far as we know, from any published research we can find, this is the first case we can find,” same James Lange, lead botanist with Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens and co-author of the study, which was published Tuesday in the Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas. “It was tragic to see as we monitored this over the years,” he said. “It was a big, old beautiful plant, one of the things that makes the Keys unique. And we’ve lost it.”

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/climate-change/article289915489.html#storylink=cpy

Categories DeSantis, Environment, Florida, Stupid

Jay Kuo: Judge Aileen Cannon’s Absurd Decision to Find Special Prosecutor Unconstitutional

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2024 //
7

Jay Kuo is a lawyer, a political consultant and a musician. His blog “The Status Kuo” is lively and well-informed. In this post, he documents how far-fetched is Judge Aileen Cannon’s recent decision to throw out the documents case against Trump, who appointed her.

He writes:

On Monday, Judge Aileen “Loose” Cannon issued a mind-exploding ruling dismissing the espionage and obstruction case against Donald Trump. Her reason? The appointment of the Special Counsel was not legally authorized.

Let me first say this. Her ruling flies in the face of every legal precedent. No less than eight courts have weighed in on this question before and found to the contrary. Yet somehow Judge Cannon has defied all that legal weight and ruled against the U.S. government.

The timing of the ruling is also very suspect. Judge Cannon has been sitting on the motion to dismiss for 144 days. Yet she issued her ruling on the first day of the Republican National Convention? This smells like legal mischief. She is raising her hand for a quid pro quo appointment to a higher bench during a possible second Trump administration.

In today’s piece, I’ll walk through why Judge Cannon’s ruling is far outside of anything we have ever seen on this question. But while precedent would dictate that she should be reversed by the 11th Circuit, she could theoretically still prevail, setting up a split in the circuits for the Supreme Court to decide. And the current High Court has shown it doesn’t give a damn about decades of precedent. Indeed, that is Cannon’s likely gambit, and it is a dangerous one.

But if she loses, as is likely, she could also pay a heavy consequence: a reassignment of the case to another judge because of her clear bias for Trump.

Why she’s wrong

The language of both the Constitution and the authorizing legislation make clear that the Special Counsel is something the Executive Branch, via its Justice Department, may appoint. 

Jack Smith argued that Congress vested the appointment of “inferior Officers” like the Special Counsel in 28 U.S.C. § 533(4), in which Congress authorized the Attorney General to appoint officials “to conduct such other investigations regarding official matters under the control of the Department of Justice…as may be directed by the Attorney General.”

Pretty damn clear if you ask me.

Before jumping into the legal arguments, it’s important to recognize how long and time-honored the tradition is of appointing Special Counsel to handle politically sensitive matters. President Ulysses S. Grant appointed one some 150 years ago in 1875 during the Whiskey Ring scandal, where distillers bribed Treasury officials to increase profits and evade taxes.

In the 1920s, there was a Special Counsel for the Teapot Dome scandal, where Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall became the first cabinet member ever sent to prison after he accepted bribes in exchange for petroleum leases.

The question of the Special Prosecutor’s authority in the Watergate investigation was first broached by the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Nixon. (Special Counsel was previously termed “Special Prosecutor.”) In that case, the Supreme Court unanimously signed off on the Special Prosecutor’s authority to issue a subpoena to Nixon for tapes of conversations. 

Yet Judge Cannon, in her infinite wisdom, decided that U.S. v. Nixon  was mere “dictum,” meaning reasoning not essential to the decision before her. She wrote that because Nixon never actually contested the Special Prosecutor’s validity, the question was not squarely before the Supreme Court.

Come on, Aileen. 

It’s clear that the Supreme Court at least approved of the Special Counsel’s very existence. Otherwise, why even consider whether he could legally subpoena the President? Nixon didn’t challenge the very existence of the Special Counsel because it’s crystal clear that the Special Counsel was legally authorized, and no one on Nixon’s team even presumed to challenge the validity of the appointment. 

Judge Cannon also ignored another Supreme Court precedent from 1988, Morrison v. Olson, which upheld a law called the Independent Counsel Act. Prosecutors have cited that decision over the decades to consistently argue that special counsels did not violate the separation of powers. Cannon rejected this argument, however, ruling that the statute it upheld had lapsed. 

But Garland had cited four other statutes enacted by Congress—including the one discussed at the top of this section—that broadly authorized him to make Smith’s appointment. Yet Judge Cannon believes she somehow knows better than Congress about how to go about actually authorizing the appointment by statute.

To finish reading this column, open the link or subscribe.

Categories Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Florida, Injustice, Trump

Florida: New Law Undermines Unions

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2024 //
23

Last year, the extremist Florida legislature passed a law that requires unions to apply for recertification if their membership drops below 60% of eligible workers. The long-term goal was to drive unions out of the state. So far, the law has caused a drop in 50,000 union members. If you are a Republican, that’s good news. If you are a Democrat or just someone who believes workers should have rights, that’s bad news. This law is the product of Ron DeSantis’ hatred of unions.

The article was written by McKenna Schueler, an investigative labor, housing and government reporter.

A new teachers “union” that is reportedly financed at least in part by the anti-union Freedom Foundation will soon appear on the ballot with the United Teachers of Dade, an existing teachers union in Miami-Dade County that represents nearly 24,000 public school educators and school staff. 

United Teachers of Dade, the largest local teachers union in the state, was recently forced to petition the state for an election to recertify — essentially, to remain formally recognized as a bargaining agent — due to consequences of a state law in Florida approved last year.

Specifically, the union was forced to petition for recertification after reporting less than 60% dues-paying membership in annual paperwork—a threshold they’re now required to meet under Florida law to remain certified. The new “union” — the Miami Dade Education Coalition — boasts itself as a viable alternative that wants to replace United Teachers of Dade.

State records show the organization officially registered with the state Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC) in February, with the backing of the Freedom Foundation, a right-wing think tank based in Washington that’s funded by billionaires. Brent Urbanik, a social studies teacher in a public magnet school in Miami-Dade County, is reportedly the new union’s president.

Unlike United Teachers of Dade, which was required gather cards in support of recertification from at least 30% of the thousands of school staff they represent, state law only requires “intervenors” like the Miami-Dade Education Coalition to gather 10% of signed cards to appear on the ballot with them. 

According to state records, the new “union” failed to even do that…on the first try…

So, MDEC tried again. 

This time, the organization only submitted 11 invalid or duplicate cards. 

But, sure, they made the cut…

Broadly speaking, there are dozens of unions across Florida that have petitioned for recertification following the passage of last year’s Senate Bill 256, a sweeping anti-union bill that was over a decade in the making. 

The law essentially makes it harder for workers to pay union dues, by prohibiting payroll dues deductions, while requiring more workers to do so in order for a union to remain certified. Membership information has to be reported to PERC annually…

So far, more than 50,000 public sector workers have lost their union representation following the passage of the new law. The Freedom Foundation, which lobbied in favor of last year’s law and sent mailers to union members telling them to ditch their unions, hasn’t been shy in sharing its delight. 

On X, formerly known as Twitter, the organization shared a screenshot of my recent article for In These Times on this fallout, declaring that these workers had “been freed from union bondage.”

“[W]e’re just getting started,” the organization added in a June 7 post.

Categories DeSantis, Extremism, Florida, Teachers, Unions

Florida: Two Festival Groups Offer to Abandon State Funding to Protect 600 Arts Groups

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2024 //
9

Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed all arts funding for ALL Florida because of two performing groups that he considers “sexualized.” Six hundred groups lost $32 million in state funding, in some cases jeopardizing their survival.

The two groups that offended the prudish DeSantis offered to give up state funding so DeSantis could restore funding to the others.

Leaders of two performing arts festivals said Thursday that they would gladly give up their grants if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis restores the $32 million in state funding he nixed for more than 600 Florida arts groups, explaining the reason for his veto as being because the two theatrical events were “a sexual festival.” 

Leaders of The Orlando Fringe and Tampa Fringe described the governor’s description as inaccurate on Thursday at a news conference, but they said it was important for the state’s arts groups to be funded because they play critical roles in their communities. The Orlando festival had been slated to get $70,500, and the Tampa festival was in line to receive $7,500 before the veto.

Categories Art, Arts Education, Censorship, Creativity, DeSantis, Extremism, Florida
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